


Stupid Sexy Quantum Antivenom

by Nausicaa_E



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Milking, Other, Xenophilia, and trying to figure out what it would be like to fuck zeiat, i don't even know if this qualifies as porn i just got really deep into presger physiology stuff, i've been in a fugue state for more than three hours and need to eat lunch so idk my chums, is the only POSSIBLE tag for what's going on here, like to make antivenom, specifically milking venom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 18:15:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nausicaa_E/pseuds/Nausicaa_E
Summary: Zeiat needs her venom milked. Sphene hates how sexy it finds all of this.





	Stupid Sexy Quantum Antivenom

“Milk me!”

“…….. What.”

“Milk me!” Zeiat repeated. Her inflection was what humans called bright and cheery, but it was delivered with the same disconnect from the situation as an ancillary’s flat expressionlessness. “Milk me! Milk me! Milk me!”

 _Sphene_ turned its segment’s head from the electrical circuit it was repairing. “Why, in any twelve hells of your choice, do you need to be milked?” _Why_ , _Sphene_ knew it was futile to ask, _do you have to keep popping up behind me like that?_

“I had an idea again -- which is still not particularly comfortable, by the way -- which is that if I bite one of you, I’ll need to cancel out the venom so that you stay the same you. If that makes sense.” Zeiat frowned, putting her thumb and finger to her chin, making a very particular pose with significance so old that _Sphene_ had to believe it was a coincidence, for its own sanity if for nothing else. “I’m not entirely sure it does.”

 _Sphene_ took three-fifths of a second to find an ansible signal, search the painfully simple datasphere for information about venom, and notice that its segment was making a worried face. It turned the segment back to the circuit. “You want me to help you make … antivenom … for yourself?”

“Do I have one?”

“Have one what?”

“A self.”

“… There’s really no answer I can give you that won’t cause further questions, will it?”

“That’s one of those _rhetorical_ questions, isn’t it? Ugh. I _hate_ how those get stuck in your teeth.”

 _Why_ , _Sphene_ also knew it was futile to ask, _do these kinds of statements do these weird things to my segments’ cortisol levels? Especially the_ decreases _?_

“But yes, antivenom is a … succinct descriptor! I think I forgot to pack some because I was being Dlique, but since I’m here and everyone says I’m Zeiat, I ought to be the responsible one.” _Sphene_ began to speak, although Zeiat broke in with a delighted, “Ooh! I _exhorted_ myself!”

“Hold on, you … have venom?” _Sphene_ suddenly remembered the previous down rotation. “Why didn’t you tell me that beforehand? Is one of my segments going to be in trouble?”

“Oh, I don’t deliver my venom through my _mouth_!” Zeiat laughed. “Although I _could_.” She looked pensive. “Do you want me to?” Cheery again. “But in case I do. _Sphene_. Milk me.”

The segment stood up, put its hands on its hips, and turned to look at Zeiat. _Sphene_ took a tenth of a second to run a circuit diagnostic, calculated the time it would take for the biosilicon to cure, and sighed, purposefully. “… Yeah, okay, I’ve got like three hours to kill.”

* * *

 

“So,” said _Sphene_ , in the bunk that had become Zeiat’s, although she adamantly insisted that she wasn’t allowed to use possessives. “How do we do this? Where do you … intend to find a mammal to get the antibodies from? What kind of container are you using?”

“ _Ooh_ ,” said Zeiat, wiggling a little. “ _Containers_? My, _my_ , _Sphene_.”

 _Oh, divinities of night. Sphene_ furrowed its segment’s brow. “Zeiat. That’s your ‘I just learned the word “sultry” and I want to see if I can be sultry’ voice. Is this a sex thing?”

Cheerful again. “It can if you want it to be!”

 _You had to go there. You_ had _to go there. Wait, no, I guess I also went there. Fuck._ “Please hold.”

Zeiat hugged _Sphene_ ’s segment, which was probably an intentional “misinterpretation”. _Damn it damn it_ damn it _I was going to refuse up until you hugged me stupid stupid_ stupid Sphene _stupid ancillaries stupid emotions stupid_ needs _why is there no better way to have fucking_ hands _than a stupid stupid_ stupid _messy human body also divinities of wind I can never talk about this with Zeiat or things will get se-_ bad _they will get bad bad_ bad _bad_ Sphene _fuck fuck_ fuck _\--_

“… Yeah, I want it to be.”

“Ooooooooh, _Sphene_ …” Something about the precise length of that “ooh” made _Sphene_ uneasy on an ancient, primal level, but there was a sexy-slash-terrifying-slash- _why are fear and desire so intertangled I bet_ Cousin _never has to deal with this and this never happened with_ Minask _so why the_ fuck-slash- _let’s just go with really, bizarrely sexy_ Translator on its segment’s lap, and that Translator was starting to remove its segment’s clothes and touch its -- “ _ohhh divinities of starlight zeiat do that again_ ,” _Sphene_ gasped. 

* * *

 

(Interestingly enough, the lone remaining segment of _Justice of Toren_ was currently thinking to herself, _Why the hell do I kinda want to have to jump off a bridge to catch Seivarden_ again _?_ ) 

* * *

 

Zeiat had significantly more fingers than an average human, when she wanted to, and _Sphene_ could feel the blood pounding through its segment as she stroked altogether too many parts of its skin. The segment’s fingers felt vacuum-burned whenever _Sphene_ tried to reciprocate, but it could still feel the things shifting under Zeiat’s skin-for-a-given-value-thereof, and it could touch the fluttering membranes delicately whenever a new seam of Zeiat opened in delight.

 _ **Sphene**_ , and the voice wasn’t a voice, but it was sweet to _Sphene_ ’s senses. **Approval. Approval. _Vehement_ approval. Please … we … we are distracted. We were …**

“Do you --” Sphene refilled its segment’s lungs -- “you want me to --”

 **Milk me! Milk me! Milk me!** The not-a-voice was genuine, the cheer now no longer an affect, but an earnest desire that cut through _Sphene_ ’s scorn the way its owner’s devices could have cut through _Sphene_ ’s heat shield.

“I still really … wish you wouldn’t … say it like that …” _Sphene_ didn’t have to make an understanding smile; Zeiat knew.

**How else can we say? How else, O _Gem_ that does shine brilliantly, when we are we, and we are desirous?**

“What …” _Sphene_ propped its segment up on Zeiat’s bunk, and tried not to look at the beautiful, luminous shape that fluttered above it, eternally curling away in blue and ultraviolet and in colors that humans never gave _Sphene_ words for, because the gelatin in their skulls couldn’t process it. “What do you need me to do?”

 **Hold me** , and it was like trying to hold onto vacuum, but _Sphene_ wrapped its arms around Zeiat, and the unfolding curls pushed one arm up in between the two, and a little ribbon placed itself on the segment’s palm. It stung, the pricks too close together to count but still more defined than the burn of Zeiat. The ribbon pulsed even brighter, and tinged with a green that reminded _Sphene_ of its namesake, and then … 

* * *

 

 _Sphene_ ran through its language banks and drew up all the languages in which poison and fire were related, and failed to find words for what it was feeling. Its implants detected no temperature change, but the segment’s nerves burned and blood vessels rose against the skin.

Another curl of Zeiat pushed the hand’s fingers up, and _Sphene_ felt something with slightly more substance. “Do you want me to --”

 **Press here** , and _Sphene_ pressed absentmindedly, and the blood pulsed within it, and it didn’t have enough breath to scream. But the not-a-voice of Zeiat was loud enough for the both of them, crying, **It is right, it is right, it is right!** and _Sphene_ ’s memory seized at lyric myths from long, long ago for a sentiment to echo it.

 _Sphene_ was aware of the slightest perception of its segment’s nerves -- not that it wasn’t already, but they were now magnified enough to press upon its primary awareness. The fabrics of the bunk, the by now gentle and familiar vacuum-burn of Zeiat’s folds, the searing heat-that-was-not-heat of the tiny particles of venom attacking the segment’s body …

 _Sphene_ pressed again, and again, and compared itself unfavorably to a laboratory animal that had learned how to get a reward. Pleasure gripped _Sphene_ like a fist, like love, and it panted, the cries of **It is right!** echoing in its perception. The two sat still on the bunk, and Zeiat fluttered faster, and the segment was ablaze. Tiny mouths opened along the segment’s skin, and filled with baleen and golden-and-verdigris tendrils, and _Sphene_ heard-without-hearing the songs that the Presger sing. Nervous impulses coalesced between the segment’s legs, and _Sphene_ was aware of the mess it was leaving on the fabric, and didn’t care.

 **O _Gem_ that is so marvelous, will you open your mouth?** The segment’s mouth had been hanging slack, but _Sphene_ lifted its head, and asked no questions, and felt the curl and burn of Zeiat on its segment’s tongue. The folds snaked down its throat, and continued to curl ever away inside it, filling, exploring, and embracing. Zeiat searched through _Sphene_ ’s segment with ever-tinier folds, and then plucked the antibodies one by one from its bloodstream, and _Sphene_ watched one curl tinge with carnelian red. **O! It is right, it is right, it is _right_!** The segment gave one final shudder, like the last song of a star, and before it could fall back against the bed, the folds of Zeiat caught it and took away the space between them, and the two stayed together for a time.

* * *

 

And then it was over, and _Sphene_ was reasserting itself, and putting clothes back on its segment over the already-disappearing Presger love bites, and Zeiat was primly folding herself away, and dripping the carnelian antivenom into -- _Sphene_ cringed -- an empty fish sauce bottle. “Thank you, _Sphene_!” Zeiat said, again making speech-that-is-speech. “Ooooooooh, I needed that. I haven’t done that as Zeiat at _all_ ; I really should more often.”

“More _often_? As in, you might want to do this _again_?” _Sphene_ devoted an unhealthy amount of processor space to thinking about that. “Translator, what … what in any _nineteen_ hells available does your venom _do_? And that was the _diluted_ version, correct?”

“Well, I’m not actually allowed to tell you this, but if I was, I would say that our venom is our perception, and that we are very sad that we find it hard to share it with you without you perceiving it as venom. You have very robust nerves, did you know that, _Sphene_?”

 _Sphene_ mentally filed this away under its list of “Thirteen Things You Never Wanted To Know About The Presger And You Really Shouldn’t Have Asked In The First Place”. The actual number was somewhat more than two hundred. “… Thank you, Zeiat. It means a lot to me.”

“I’m _meaning_! Oh, _Sphene_ , you _do_ care.”

 _Sphene_ sighed. “… Yeah, okay, I do care.”

Zeiat hugged the segment, her touch once again nothing but skin on skin.

 _Divinities of wind. Fucking_ feelings _._


End file.
